The Loveliest Contradiction
by MacDixon Love
Summary: Daryl isn't the average person, even in the world with walkers. But even Daryl has human needs. Even Daryl can fall in love, and be loved.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Alrighty so school work is hell. Um I did this little beauty under an extreme amount of stress thanks to three disgusting papers I'm trying to write. Well hope you enjoy! This is my first oneshot ever, I've always struggled with shorter stories.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own the Walking Dead characters or plot lines. Just wanna play with them for a while, thanks!**

**Warnings: extreme amounts of fluff, gorgeous man description.**

The Loveliest Contradiction.

Daryl is a walking contradiction. He's loud, angry, obnoxious, and he throws things. He has no grace, his boots squish anything in their path, he scares small children, he's merciless. He breaks, maims, murders, and smashes anything he touches. His glare burns through your skin, your skull. It ears into your brain 'til you're a drooling idiot, choking on your own saliva. It's awful. He's awful.

Daryl's strides are silent. He's stealthy, full of potential energy. He's the rubber band pulled tight just waiting to snap into someone's eye. He's delicate in everything he does, he glides atop the forest floor quick as silver, and right as rain. With the same hands he kills with, he fixes and repairs. He can stitch you up and send you off with a smirk, he can make it all better and kiss your wounds. In this new world we get a lot of wounds. He kisses only mine though, even the little ones.

Daryl is the demon perched at Hell's entrance, he'll wear a glare and a smile at the same time. He'll beckon you forth, take your hand and plunge with you into the depths of hell, your skin searing as the flames lap you hungrily. But still, you have Daryl's hand, he still wears that smile. Those leather wings are false, they're really silken white feathers. There dirty. White shows the dirt the worst, in the old, pristine world, they'd be an ugly sacrament of failure. Now they are pristine. So many of us have taken gruesome, haggard black wings, dripping with the cruelty of everything, even me. Not Daryl, he is an angel. Daryl is my angel.

Scars may mar his flesh in a mapping of an undesirable past, but Daryl is flawless. His body a testament to the wonders of nature, a walking Adonis. A temple shrine to feral forest beings, that's what Daryl is, feral. He bites and snaps and claws, but I hold him through it all, even viscous creatures need love. Daryl is my love. No scar, burn, or bad upbringing can break that, I dammed sure won't let it. He's so perfect, too perfect to be lonely. I never want him to be lonely.

He loves his woods, he loves his solo hunts, and his days of solitude, but he loves me more. I know because he told me himself. Not in as many words, but he said it. Daryl isn't alone anymore.

His breathing is strong and even, all powerful as the tides strike the shore, driven by a constant impending force. His chest, bare, meets the chilly air in our shared tent with forceful heaves skyward, its like his lungs are determined to expand past his ribcage, he's going to break something eventually but he never does. He's still gruff and violent, but around me he manages so much more. He's more multifaceted than a diamond, and cooler than the other side of the pillow. My eyes sweep the expanse of bared flesh, taking in every memorized knick, tear, or old gash. I'll have to kiss away all the bad memories tied to the pinky silver tissue later, when he wakes up. But not now. Now is my time just to marvel. It takes a long time to absorb the Dixon masterpeice, but in this frigid world, we have time. Maybe time has us, who knows, but now I just look.

He shifts in his sleep and grimances, my love shouldn't have to make faces like that but he usually does anyhow. His eyes are bruised from sleep deprivation, but they're still beautiful. They struggle open to reveal the two pools of cool blue that still send a jolt through my heart after all this time, they're magnificent.

"Mornin' Rick," he mumbles in barely distinguishable English, his accent is always thicker than pea soup when he first wakes up, I'll never get tired of it, never. "you starin' again?" he tries to grumble but I know he's happy, he always is when he catches me looking at him, "Sicko. I should have you arrested," he's nuzzled into the pillow next to my head so its hard to hear him but his shoulders are shaking with almost laughter. I love it when its like this. I love mornings. Mornings are filled with deep southern accents that make me melt into a pool on the floor. Daryl should really give his victims complimentary "wet floor" signs since he reduces us all to gelatinous custard with that harsh sweeter than honey, slow-drip drawl he flaunts so heedlessly.

He pops up, resting all his weight on his forearms next to me, a glare shadowing out his pretty eyes, "Yah should really stop that shit, people gonna get the wrong idea an' think were gay er sumthin'" we look at each other with raised eyebrows for a minute before we break into snorting laughs. Our shared tent isn't chilly anymore. My sun is awake again, there is a fire in my life that burns out all the cold painful thoughts. Daryl is untouchable. Daryl is perfect. Daryl is just for me. He doesn't say it in words, no, he always says more with his eyes than his tongue. Words are superficial.

"Come on, lets go patrol, lover boy." and we do.

End.


	2. Playing House

**A/N: I'm sure I was missed. ~MacDixy**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Walking Dead nor any characters associated with the show. All rights go to their proper owners, that's all fine and dandy for them.**

**Warning: Male on male romance, really just dangerously cute men.**

Playing House.

Daryl wasn't exactly certain when he had gotten so attached to being around people. Just months ago he couldn't stand going into a super market without glaring at anyone that came within three yards of him. He was beginning to realize just how unhealthy all that time of glaring and cursing had been.

Within the past months he had swapped the only person he had ever trusted out for a more trustworthy and dependable person. He had traded a brother for a lover. A male lover at that. He could try to call his "lover" a boyfriend, but at such advanced ages as they were it just didn't quite sound right. He had never really been one for childish sounding titles anyway but he needed something to label Rick by.

After a few solid months of sharing a bed and spending every waking minute with the man, Daryl was still uncertain what their relationship had become. He had no earthly idea how in just _months _he had made an attachment that he hadn't been able to make in all his life. Daryl had never shared a bed with another person repeatedly other than with Merle. Daryl had never looked to another person to right all his wrongs like was starting to with Rick. There had just never been anyone as dependable as Rick.

Their relationship had started with a rocky lurch in the wrong direction but had eased into this area of familiarity that rarely happened after only a few short months. Rick had become like the childhood home that he knew by heart. A scent that brought him back to the sick days of youth and being cared for by a pudgy fingered grandmother. The sweetness of an early morning cigarette. The smell of witch hazel on his father after a visit to the barber. His mother's blonde hair rolled up into pink curlers every night. Rick had become an unbreakable habit.

In the nights that Daryl couldn't sleep because of the nightmares that had worsened since the dead had risen, Rick stayed up with him. He would make pathetic excuses for it saying that his own night terrors plagued him ten times worse than that of Daryl's mind. The darker knew that wasn't true. Rick always slept soundly beside him even after Lori was dead and buried. Still they would sit and talk all the frightening images away. A decomposing hand would be made into a leafy branch. A bloody pool of corpses would become a secluded fishing hole. Rick simply had the power to make horrible things vanish.

Nightmares were a normal though, not just for the Dixon. Throughout the camp whimpering could be heard from separate forms. Carl had always had awful trouble with sleeping thoroughly through the night so more often then not Carl would huddle into Daryl's tent along with his father. The kid never asked questions but simply accepted whatever it was they weren't telling him. He really did like Daryl and any time spent with the man was a jewel to him. His mother never really let him have enough sleepovers when he was a little kid.

That's just what they had become. Rick may have equal calming qualities as the forest did, but sometimes it was just best to be surrounded by an ancient and untouched world. He had become right domestic in just a short time. Carl would look up at him with his big watery eyes and Daryl would bend to exact his bidding. Rick would give him a nod or a look of approval and his entire heart would burst into flaming pride.

He would do anything to make the young Grimes happy. Currently he was perched on a rotting log Carl's birthday would be in a few hours and Daryl was nearly done whittling away at the hunk of wood that would be Carl's present. He'd stopped his patrol, his hunting, and all his daily chores just for one little kid and his sappy, albeit insane, father. What in hell was Daryl becoming?

He'd never wanted a mundane, garden variety, banal, humdrum life that Rick was obviously pushing. He had never in all of his years thought that a minivan and soccer game existence would be in his future, but here it be. Of course, there would be no soccer games. All the players had lost an arm and were rotting flesh now. Minivans were obsolete transportation now that most of the gasoline had spoiled. There wouldn't be carpools or juice boxes and little Judith wouldn't get to be in dance recitals or have a pretty dollhouse. But hell if that wasn't what he wanted.

He was in _that _life and he loved every second of it. Somehow he had gotten drafted as second daddy in command to the two little Grimes kids. No, it wasn't what it would have been in the past but it was the new world version of a very old thing. Daryl Dixon had become normal.

He personally wouldn't have it any other way.

"There you are," Rick sighed as he plopped onto the log next to the hunter. He inspected the rounded thing in Daryl's hands questioningly. He wouldn't ask though. If Daryl had anything to say he would say it.

"It's for your boy." he murmured into the knife in his hand. He had just finished the last intricate notch in the face of the thing. It was now a delicate circle, open slightly at one end, several geometric etchings within one larger square carving.

"Ah…" Rick didn't elaborate, still having no idea what exactly Daryl was making. Knowing the redneck it could have been anything. Maybe a nice squirrel carcass holder to fit around Carl's belt?

With a grumbling sigh Daryl held the small object up higher so that Rick could get a better view of his small creation. "See, it's a bracelet." There was a certain shyness to his grumblings and Rick recognized his uncertainty. Daryl didn't know if his present would be liked by the kid he was holding so deep within his heart, Rick's son.

Rick fell in love all over again.

"Have I ever told you how talented you are?" he didn't stop his wandering hand from twisting a finger into Daryl's belt loop. The blush on his partner's cheeks only spurred him to a little romancing under the bright blue sky. "Extremely talented, I mean it. In _everything _you do." Daryl's teeth worked over the inside of his lip like it were prime cut meat, and to Rick it was.

"N-now wait just a minute-" Project forgotten and private goods threatened Daryl couldn't help but to be just a bit defensive. All his flowering defenses were forgotten when a pair of chapped lips sealed over his own. The familiarity took him by surprise again and he couldn't prevent his body's natural reaction. His hand fisted in Rick's now overgrown hair as his other still gripped a knife. Rick's finger stayed hooked in its looped prison but he leaned deep into the kiss exploring that ever so divine mouth.

Tongues twisted and met in a blissful rush of sublime togetherness. His back arched when Rick tickling the roof of his mouth with a moan. There can't be a better feeling than this, thought Daryl. There isn't one single feeling on this planet better than that of home.

Rick was home. The crackling fireplaces and overstuffed couches and inconsequential lifestyle that was so foreign to Daryl. The childhood taken away from him so quickly and so painfully, the lack of rubble and ashes, scars not to be given to a child. Those were the things that Rick made him forget.

They weren't playing make-believe anymore, Rick had become his home. There isn't one single feeling on this planet better than that of home.

"Come on lover boy," Daryl managed once he had pried the ex-cop's mouth from his. "We've got a party to throw."

And they walked down the path. Back to home, back to family, and back to their son.

The end for now….


End file.
